The Crazy Woman

Related poetry:

1. Crazy Jane On The Mountain I am tired of cursing the Bishop, (Said Crazy Jane) Nine books or nine hats Would not make him a man. I have found something worse To meditate on. A King had some beautiful cousins. But where are they gone? Battered to death in a cellar, And he stuck to his throne. Last night I […]...
2. The Woman At The Gate “Where is your little boy to-day?” I asked her at the gate. “I used to see him at his play, And often I would wait: He was so beautiful, so bright, I watched him with delight. “He had a tiny motor-car And it was painted red; He wound it up; it ran so far, So […]...
3. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
4. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
5. Impatience How can I wait until you come to me? The once fleet mornings linger by the way; Their sunny smiles touched with malicious glee At my unrest, they seem to pause, and play Like truant children, while I sigh and say, How can I wait? How can I wait? Of old, the rapid hours Refused […]...
6. Some People some people never go crazy. Me, sometimes I’ll lie down behind the couch For 3 or 4 days. They’ll find me there. It’s Cherub, they’ll say, and They pour wine down my throat Rub my chest Sprinkle me with oils. Then, I’ll rise with a roar, Rant, rage – Curse them and the universe As […]...
7. Sea Sorcery Oh how I love the laughing sea, Sun lances splintering; Or with a virile harmony In salty caves to sing; Or mumbling pebbles on the shore, Or roused to monster might: By day I love the sea, but more I love it in the night. High over ocean hangs my home And when the moon […]...
8. Music Swims Back To Me Wait Mister. Which way is home? They turned the light out And the dark is moving in the corner. There are no sign posts in this room, Four ladies, over eighty, In diapers every one of them. La la la, Oh music swims back to me And I can feel the tune they played The […]...
9. The Most Beautiful Woman In Town Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl In town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes To go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that Would not hold […]...
10. Elementalist Could Fate ordain a lot for me Beyond all human ills, I think that I would choose to be A shephard of the hills; With shaggy cloak and cape where skies Eternally are blue How I would stare with quiet eyes At passing you! And you would stare at static me, Beside my patient flock; […]...
11. The Truth of Woman Woman’s faith, and woman’s trust – Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon’s pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain’d the spider’s thread ‘Gainst the promise of […]...
12. Portrait Of An Old Woman On The College Tavern Wall Oh down at the tavern The children are singing Around their round table And around me still. Did you hear what it said? I only said How there is a pewter urn Pinned to the tavern wall, As old as old is able To be and be there still. I said, the poets are tere […]...
13. Crazy Jane On God That lover of a night Came when he would, Went in the dawning light Whether I would or no; Men come, men go; All things remain in God. Banners choke the sky; Men-at-arms tread; Armoured horses neigh In the narrow pass: All things remain in God. Before their eyes a house That from childhood stood […]...
14. Crazy Jane On The Day Of Judgment ‘Love is all Unsatisfied That cannot take the whole Body and soul’; And that is what Jane said. ‘Take the sour If you take me I can scoff and lour And scold for an hour.’ “That’s certainly the case,’ said he. ‘Naked I lay, The grass my bed; Naked and hidden away, That black day’; […]...
15. Crazy Jane Reproved I care not what the sailors say: All those dreadful thunder-stones, All that storm that blots the day Can but show that Heaven yawns; Great Europa played the fool That changed a lover for a bull. Fol de rol, fol de rol. To round that shell’s elaborate whorl, Adorning every secret track With the delicate […]...
16. Crazy Jane And The Bishop Bring me to the blasted oak That I, midnight upon the stroke, (All find safety in the tomb.) May call down curses on his head Because of my dear Jack that’s dead. Coxcomb was the least he said: The solid man and the coxcomb. Nor was he Bishop when his ban Banished Jack the Journeyman, […]...
17. Corn Hut Talk WRITE your wishes on the door and come in. Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon. Bring in the handshake of the pumpkins. There’s a wish for every hazel nut? There’s a hope for every corn shock? There’s a kiss for every clumsy climbing shadow? Clover and the bumblebees once, High winds and […]...
18. Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop I met the Bishop on the road And much said he and I. ‘Those breasts are flat and fallen now, Those veins must soon be dry; Live in a heavenly mansion, Not in some foul sty.’ ‘Fair and foul are near of kin, And fair needs foul,’ I cried. ‘My friends are gone, but that’s […]...
19. Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone, For love is but a skein unwound Between the dark and dawn. A lonely ghost the ghost is That to God shall come; I – love’s skein upon the ground, My body […]...
20. Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks At The Dancers I found that ivory image there Dancing with her chosen youth, But when he wound her coal-black hair As though to strangle her, no scream Or bodily movement did I dare, Eyes under eyelids did so gleam; Love is like the lion’s tooth. When She, and though some said she played I said that she […]...
21. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
22. Sing All Ye People! Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor, For the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever, And the Dark Tower is thrown down. Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard, For your watch hath not been in vain, And the Black Gate is broken, And your King hath passed through, […]...
23. There was a man and a woman i There was a man and a woman Who sinned. Then did the man heap the punishment All upon the head of her, And went away gaily. Ii There was a man and a woman Who sinned. And the man stood with her. As upon her head, so upon his, Fell blow and blow, And […]...
24. Twenty-First. Night. Monday Twenty-first. Night. Monday. Silhouette of the capitol in darkness. Some good-for-nothing who knows why Made up the tale that love exists on earth. People believe it, maybe from laziness Or boredom, and live accordingly: They wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting, And when they sing, they sing about love. But the secret reveals itself to […]...
25. The Old Woman of Berkeley The Raven croak’d as she sate at her meal, And the Old Woman knew what he said, And she grew pale at the Raven’s tale, And sicken’d and went to her bed. ‘Now fetch me my children, and fetch them with speed,’ The Old Woman of Berkeley said, ‘The Monk my son, and my daughter […]...
26. Head of a White Woman Winking She has one good bumblebee Which she leads about town On a leash of clover. It’s as big as a Saint Bernard But also extremely fragile. People want to pet its long, shaggy coat. These would be mostly whirling dervishes Out shopping for accessories. When Lily winks they understand everything, Right down to the particle […]...
27. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
28. Leisure What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full […]...
29. The Woman and the Wife I THE EXPLANATION “You thought we knew,” she said, “but we were wrong. This we can say, the rest we do not say; Nor do I let you throw yourself away Because you love me. Let us both be strong, And we shall find in sorrow, before long, Only the price Love ruled that we […]...
30. THE MUSES' SON [Goethe quotes the beginning of this song in His Autobiography, as expressing the manner in which his poetical Effusions used to pour out from him.] THROUGH field and wood to stray, And pipe my tuneful lay, ‘Tis thus my days are pass’d; And all keep tune with me, And move in harmony, And so on, […]...
31. How Much More Blood? How much more blood Must the people suffer Before they come to a halt With this horror of power? How many more lives Do we have to proffer ’till cloyed they are forever With terror manufacture? (November 1998)...
32. Woman with a Past THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry. There was a woman spoke six short words And quit a life that was old to her For a life that was new. There was a woman […]...
33. The singing dog when the dog began to sing The people ran amok A man shinned up a flagpole A woman chewed her sock Children danced the drainpipe A policeman robbed a bank The mayor and all the councillors Fired doughnuts from a tank The queen embraced the dustman The clergy showed their knees Librarians in their thousands […]...
34. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
35. What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner Or Later Husbands are things that wives have to get used to putting up with. And with whom they breakfast with and sup with. They interfere with the discipline of nurseries, And forget anniversaries, And when they have been particularly remiss They think they can cure everything with a great big kiss, And when you tell them […]...
36. Curse of the Cat Woman It sometimes happens That the woman you meet and fall in love with Is of that strange Transylvanian people With an affinity for cats. You take her to a restuarant, say, or a show, On an ordinary date, being attracted By the glitter in her slitty eyes and her catlike walk, And afterwards of course […]...
37. Portrait (For S. A.)TO write one book in five years Or five books in one year, To be the painter and the thing painted, … where are we, bo? Wait-get his number. The barber shop handling is here And the tweeds, the cheviot, the Scotch Mist, And the flame orange scarf. Yet there is more-he sleeps […]...
38. The stork Last night the Stork came stalking, And, Stork, beneath your wing Lay, lapped in dreamless slumber, The tiniest little thing! From Babyland, out yonder Beside a silver sea, You brought a priceless treasure As gift to mine and me! Last night my dear one listened – And, wife, you knew the cry – The dear […]...
39. A Woman's Love So vast the tide of Love within me surging, It overflows like some stupendous sea, The confines of the Present and To-be; And ‘gainst the Past’s high wall I feel it urging, As it would cry “Thou too shalt yield to me!” All other loves my supreme love embodies; I would be she on whose […]...
40. The Ballad Of The Northern Lights One of the Down and Out that’s me. Stare at me well, ay, stare! Stare and shrink say! you wouldn’t think that I was a millionaire. Look at my face, it’s crimped and gouged one of them death-mask things; Don’t seem the sort of man, do I, as might be the pal of kings? Slouching […]...